PRAGMATIC LEADERSHIP and ADVISORY BOARD

We have a deep knowledge base of digital technology as well as the publishing, marketing and communications industries. We’ve created some of the first digital agencies and lived through the bubble bursting-twice. With this experience, we have created an organization uniquely suited to meet your digital needs today.

David Yakir – Managing Director

For over 20 years, David Yakir has been an entrepreneur, creative-lead and technology strategist in the advertising, media, digital marketing and entertainment space. As an executive, he led one of the first and most successful new media and marketing companies, winning several industry awards. He has also served on the board of two advertising holding companies. In the entertainment arena, he has written and directed for the theater and television in both London and the United States. He is also currently host of I Heart Radio’s “Yak About Tech”.

In the large Ad-Agency world, David was Chief Digital Officer of Y&R and Wunderman worldwide.

As Founder and CEO, David led Blue Marble in the winning of virtually all major industry awards, as Adweek named Blue Marble “a top five agency” every year of its existence. Blue Marble grew to a global agency of several hundred people and is now a strategic part of the Publicis Group.

David has been instrumental in developing or leading many of the Fortune 500 companies digital strategies including P&G, Continental Airlines, General Motors, Microsoft and Ford.

David was also an investor in the 33Delivered group which provides counsel for companies dedicated to serving the human condition which included institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History.

As a theatre and television producer, director and writer, he worked with Ned Sherrin, CBE, to develop the PBS and Yorkshire Televisions series, “We Interrupt This Week” and “Song by Song.” Other notable works include writing and directing the London musical, “Only in America,” the original “Smokey Joe’s Café.”

As an assistant professor of communications at Baruch College, CIty University of New York, he developed one of the first computerized visual analytic labs for the study of English as a Second Language. This model has been used in many colleges and universities.

The Yakir Group has evolved over the last 9 years,from a marketing and development company to the new, present day entrepreneurial consulting group. For most of its life we were champions of change. CHANGE IS GOOD, CHANGE IS GREAT, CHANGE SUCKS!. And yet, all the while as The Yakir Group addressed rapid changes in communications and marketing, change happened to The Yakir Group business itself.

ADVISORY BOARD

Harlan Kleiman joins as an advisor to the David Yakir GroupHarlan Kleiman

Harlan Kleiman In Memoriam (1940-2016)

Serial Entrepreneur, Speaker & Advisor to healthcare companies in patient support and advocacy. Harlan Kleiman co-founded the Self Health Network in 2011 and acted as its Chairman and CEO until mid-2014. SHN is a healthcare IT company dedicated to empowering post-acute hospital patients to manage their condition and electronically stay in touch with their medical support system. Kleiman’s Interests span the worlds of finance, entertainment, and healthcare. Prior to co-founding SHN, he was CEO and Chairman of Shoreline Pacific, a merchant/investment bank in San Francisco which has financed and helped develop over 20 companies in the healthcare industry, including ImClone, Dendreon, Corixa, BioPure, Stemcells, ICN Pharmaceuticals and Genzyme Transgenics. Shoreline has also financed and developed companies in natural resources, alternative energy technologies, telecommunications, and the Internet industries, raising over $3 billion. Earlier, as head of programming at Home Box Office, he created their made for TV programming including the pay TV introduction of Bette Midler, Robin Williams and Steve Martin, the first made for pay TV movie and the first interactive pay TV series. He headed the group that created MTV and Nickelodeon, two of the most successful TV networks in history, while serving as Senior VP of Warner Comm. Cable TV Division. He co-founded The Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, CT, now in its 50th year of operation. He has produced plays on and off Broadway and has produced and packaged touring stage and dance productions worldwide. Kleiman holds a Master’s Degree from Yale University, was on the faculty at NYU School of the Arts,and has lectured on theater, film and TV at Harvard, Yale, the Universities of Virginia and Chicago and served as a special consultant to the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has served as a trustee of National Public Radio, a Director of KQED, an advisor to U.S. Strategies Corporation and The Program in Human Values, California Pacific Medical Center, as wells as a trustee of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and a Trustee of The Buck Institute for Age Research. He has written the best-selling business book Pipes: The CEO’s Guide to Successful Private Investments in Public Equities. He is currently working on a project to develop a company to help middle income consumers deal with some of the unintended consequences of the Affordable Care Act.

John Mallen John Mallen is an innovative thinker, communication strategist and public relations expert with an innate ability to find golden egg opportunities in every challenge or sticky situation. As founder and CEO of John Mallen Communications Marketing & PR (JMC), which he started in 1987, he has become the go-to guy for companies and organizations that require innovative solutions to unique problems and creative strategies to achieve groundbreaking results.

For the past 27 years, he has served a diverse group of multinational, local and regional firms by providing brand and message development, media relations and communications strategy. But beyond that, he has successfully turned high-stakes situations – such as a five-plant worker strike, the recall of faulty gas values on commercial stoves, and even the deaths of two workers at a company in Mexicali — into opportunities for improved public relations and profitable growth for his clients.

John’s newest offering, The Bigger Conversation, is yet another example of how he combines the art of communications and proven marketing strategy to create a new solution for an age-old problem. This six-step proprietary system gives companies the tools and training they need to turn everyday conversations into opportunities to expand their client base, increase sales and achieve new levels of profitability.

It was while working as a journalist at the Providence Journal in the late 1960’s that John developed an insatiable curiosity and passion for finding the story worth telling — the story that could rise above the noise and create understanding, collaboration and positive change at both the global and local level. After getting his Masters in Public Administration at Syracuse University in 1973, he was hired by the Committee for Economic Development, where he used his communication skills to influence public policy and get publicity coverage in major outlets like the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Fortune and Forbes magazines and others.

In 1979 John was hired by Carl Byoir & Associates, at the time one of the top three PR firms in the country, where served as senior vice president until he left to start his own PR firm. His mission was to provide clients with the full breadth of PR services offered by the bigger firms but with the personal attention and customer service of a smaller company.

While John serves clients around the globe, he is deeply committed to the businesses and organizations in his own backyard: the Hudson Valley of New York. From protecting a local environmental non-profit from political attack to providing public relations support to a regional medical center for traumatic brain injury, John contributes his skills, expertise and resources to many local non-profits, trade organizations and businesses.

Previously the associate director of information for the Committee for Economic Development, John has served on the board of the Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce, and provided volunteer support to the Regional Plan Association and the Safe America Foundation. John served with the US Army Military Police in Vietnam in 1967-1968.

When not creating new programs like the Bigger Conversation or serving his clients and community, John enjoys listening to live music, yoga, and engaging in conversations that lead to new ideas, insight and opportunities for greater connection with others.

Jeffrey Ginsberg joins the board of Advisors of the David Yakir Group

Jeffrey Ginsberg

Ginsberg’s impressive credentials are a story of focus, strengthening and expansion – much like the brands his clients over the years have entrusted into his marketing care.

Like all well-rounded advertising executives, Jeff commenced at the proverbial bottom, working as a messenger for an advertising agency, then stead ily working his way up the ranks, serving brief stints in virtually every influential silo or department. He ultimately reached the corner office, becoming President of Milton Samuels Advertising (MSA), and along the way, he took such brands as Samsung Camera, Don Q Rum, Motorola, Bionare, Brother International and AT&T (just to name a few) along for the rewarding ride. As Jeff’s name steadily grew in prominence, and influence, so did the brands in his stewardship. He applies the same formula to his clients’ assets as he does to his own – he focuses them on a goal, he strengthens their position to achieve those goals, and then he ultimately expands them to embody those goals.

Case in point: Once at the helm of Milton Samuels, he increased the shop’s billings from $1.2 million to a cresting highpoint at $50 million, strategically evolving the direction of the agency from a primarily collateral-based focus to that of a more expansive TV Creative Agency and Media Buying powerhouse. He created such initiatives as Total Marketing Support for his clients – or TMS – a “before-its-time” strategy that called for the rallying of all communications elements behind one cohesive branding message. Years later, the industry would seem to follow suit.

Chapter Two of his career led him out of MSA to partner with a colleague in the founding of his own agency: Badalato Ginsberg Advertising, which today continues to go and grow strongly some 14 years later. Here, he and his partners have specialized in brand ideation and creation, being instrumental in the inception, launch and growth of many young and start-up brands, which he has helped birth from fledgling concept. With his experienced and enthusiastic guidance as energy – for Jeff truly loves what he does – Badalato-Ginsberg has helped increase the earnings of such respected entities as Gemini, Bell South Products, Pierre Cardin and Perry Ellis Eyewear, in addition to such consumer electronics giants as PNY, Haier America, US Electronics and, most recently, AT&T. He has also collaborated closely with Evelyn Lauder over the years, and continues to be a key player in generating awareness and dollars for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. He is also a member of the Advertising Club of America as well as a Clio judge